Mid-week Update

Hello all. I'm slowly crawling back from illness. Soup, crackers, and ginger ale are miracles.

So, as promised...
So we went to get our student id cards. They separated us by EU and international students. Now, I might be reading too far into it, but they did ask almost every non-Caucasian who went through the EU line if they meant to be in the international line. So, we waited and waited in the international line. The EU line was clear, but ours was backed up out the door and down the hall... We were getting a little scared about why we were being separated (interrogation? deportation? just wanted to make us wait to laugh at the foreigners?). So, when we got to the front of the line we were relieved to find out that they were sending us to the same line as the EU kids. Whew! What a relief--but why make us wait all that time if they were just sending us to the same line? Wow! They really did just want to make us wait so they could laugh at the foreign kids!

The next story was just a fun observation. Everyone in my program loves what we do. It's a real difference from undergrad. Now, I went to uni (assimilation moment!) with lots of smart and passionate people. But, there were also those who did the work, or less, just enough to get the grade. I frequently felt more than a little nerdy whenever I did my homework around others, I'd have multiple applications open looking things up online, taking notes, I don't think I've ever read anything without a highlighter and pencil... Here people talk about classes, lectures, the readings. It's so exciting that people are, well, excited. I've actually imposed the rule, after class if we are in a social setting where alcohol and food are being served and we're meant to hang out socially, we can only discuss class things for the first hour--then we are cut off and need to be fun, casual, social creatures.

And finally the third point. There is a lot of alcohol here. There are bars everywhere. In campus buildings. Several in the main student building. There is even a dance club on campus. Every meeting I've been to has ended with wine. In America we bribe with snacks, here they bribe with alcohol. Do you know how early people start drinking here? But, you know, I have yet to see a sloppy drunk person stumbling down the street (Rt 1...).

Well, this wasn't a very interesting post. I'll get more exciting once I feel better. To entertain you, I share funny links that explain what my daily life is like here. They are a pretty accurate depiction of life in Britain.
http://www.effingpot.com/slang.shtml
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYmrg3owTRE


Shout out to soup, crackers, and ginger ale.